LinuxGameCast Weekly EP212 – Albino Yellow Snø

We test Rocket League on a 1080! Nintendo cancels Metroid, ARK released Early Access DLC, and Giana Sisters is still not coming to Linux. Then Frozen State faces the CHAIRQUISITON! All this plus your hate mail.

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Steam News:

Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

How Long (Thanks Osirez)
http://www.pcgamer.com/steam-sale-dates/

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Breaking: Old games get cheaper. 
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AAA 7 months
Good indie 9.2
More or less confirming what many of us had already pieced together
A lot of this data doesn’t really inform linux sales, considering the behaviour of steam and publishers when larger games make it to the platform

RocketCar (pending)
http://steamcommunity.com/games/252950/announcements/detail/790768458683931902

-25% off? For a beta? Yeah, I can wait.
Seems they forgot to enable the bundle-obtained licenses.
2 things don’t work, that I’ve discovered so far: AA and disabling the FerPS limiter.
- Everything looks like an MC Escher painting with stairs all over what should be round/diagonal.
- And the FerPS seem to be stuck at 60. Which is fine for me, since both these monitors are 60Hz, but it sucks for getting any form of performance metric.
  - Considering they had time to redo the render /w Vulkan (they didn’t) I am dissapoint.
That said, it launched out of the box.
Controllers work (at least the Logitech F310 and The Mistress).
Performance on the Steambox was very similar to what I got on this box.
They say SteamOS is the only officially supported Linux distro but AA doesn’t work there either.
It freezes on me when a match ends if I hit Vote for Rematch.
If you’re on Fedora or another distro which doesn’t use the SteamOS/Debian/Ubuntu path for the ca-cert, do this:
- sudo ln -s /etc/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
- Otherwise you won’t be able to play online.

Something something EA DLC
http://www.pcinvasion.com/ark-survival-evolved-reviews-nosedive

What’s the point of EA if you can sell DLC?
- I mean, was the DLC Greenlit?
How aboot a GOTY edition?
Listen man, when that EA well runs dry, you still have to find a way to make some money
How about some unfinished DLC for your unfinished game?
Seems they are handling things well
- http://techraptor.net/content/ark-survival-evolved-dev-apologises
There’s a whole thing about one of the devs breaching a Do Not Compete contract and them having settled for $40 million.
Maybe that’s why they did it but I’m still of the opinion that if you’re selling DLC, your game is fucking done!
- Well, they could have finished more of the game if they spent the DLC time on, you know… finishing the game.

So they do know how to Linux
http://steamcommunity.com/games/299480/announcements/detail/568965831717884978

Still no Giana Sisters, though.
- No one cares about that game man. It’s in the past.
  - I gotta have another game to use as a whipping boy now that Rocket League is on Linux. Another besides Carmageddon, that is!
Wonder what version of WINE they will use.

FINISHED!
http://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=346010

Besiege finally finished the last 4 campaign levels to The Island of Tolbrynd!
Aaaaaaand they are gong to create a new island.
The early access train keeps marching on
Kind of wish they’d pull a minecraft and slap a 1.0 on it. You can still add new shit, just stop being early access

GOG DLC
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/armello_drmfree_edition_now_available_on_gog_2b6bf/post387
https://steamcommunity.com/app/290340/discussions/0/350540973992434334/?ctp=8#c350540974002885722

Steam DRM is best DRM.
There’s a really simple way to distribute DLC in a DRM free fashion
Y’all just don’t want to do it.

News:

Shmen Shmidia
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/107408/en-us

They work.
It looks like that vkQuake thing we covered a few weeks back revealed some bugs in nvidia’s vulkan implementation
Other than that, looks like your standard consolidation of driver features.

1050
http://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1050-gp107-gpu-specs/

75W TDP means it could easily be PCIe only with proper power binning.
- Which is exactly where they should be aiming
The 750/TI was a fantastic card because it drastically reduced the cost of entry for PC gaming. Nvidia needs to be right in this market
- If the $150 MSRP holds, this will be THE budget card for Linux systems for the foreseeable future as the 750Ti was/is still to this day.
- It will be like a 480… with working drivers.
- And considering the current state of the AMDGPU Linux driver, the 1050 will perform better than the RX 480 for $50 less MSRP.

DLC
https://www.humblebundle.com/gamemaker-bundle

I still get a kick from the $99 Ubuntu export module DLC.
Hyper light drifter was a GMS game, so you can make good shit with it if you’re so inclined. Of course, UE4 exists and is free, and unity personal edition is totally a thing

OpenAbe
https://github.com/paulsapps/alive

Don’t feel like shilling out the cash for the oddworld remakes? Still have your old ass copies? Do we have a project for you

OpenMW
https://openmw.org/2016/openmw-0-40-0-released/

Nothing major added to this release, it’s mostly just fixing a few glaring bugs in both the reimplementation and the original game.
Shadows and Distant Land are still AWOL.
We’re creeping closer to that 1.0. I’m looking forward to throwing some chairs at it.

Retomb
http://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/fan-is-working-on-an-epic-remake-of-tom-raider-ii-in-unreal-engine-4-releases-new-screenshots/

If you want people to quit bugging you stop releasing screenshots.
Good on CD for giving this the OK. Too many good fan games get the axe because of corporate bullshitery.
- *cough* Nintendo *cough*
Also WHAR POLYGONAL BOOBS
The year of Engine Re-implementations continues!

All the games
https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2016/09/06/booting-the-final-gc-game/

That’s gotta feel nice.
Hardcoded memory management. Damn son
The thing here is that all games “start”.
Some aren’t exactly playable, yet.
- Yes, let’s disparage the hard work of reverse engineering a console

AMGone
https://www.reddit.com/r/AM2R/comments/50x3u6/am2r_has_ceased_development_permanently/

Not releasing the source is kinda a dick move.
Glad is was basically finished and yes I yoinked a Linux build.
What was I saying before about corporate bullshit?

Interplay is selling their games
http://www.pcgamer.com/interplay-to-sell-entire-videogame-library-and-assets/

You remember Interplay right?
They sold the single-player rights for the Fallout franchise to Bethesda.
Then Bethesda sued them when they tried to make a Fallout MMO (Project V13).
Now they’re languishing in obscurity and selling off whatever other IPs they still have lying around.
Most of the interplay licenses I care about have moved to other companies, so I greet this with a resounding ‘MEH’
- For me, I want Asspyre to buy the MDK and Messiah licenses.
- Always wanted to play MDK.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Frozen State

Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/270270/
Devel: Flox Studios
Engine: Unity 5
Price: 11.99 / CDN 12.99

Wazzat: Frozen State is a brutal, survival game set in a world embraced by the man-made ice age meant to protect mankind from pestilent hybrids. Bitter cold and numbing fear are the constant companions in the journey through the retro-futuristic Frozen State world.

Makes with the working

V-

Just had a game start with E disabled.
Killed and crashed.

J-

I’ve gotten stuck in the walls and between furniture a few times
And at least one crash when dying

P-

Died 3 times when exploring a building and the game crashed
Now, everytime I die the game crashes.
The FerPS hold a steady 60, which for a Unity game is impressive.
- Until you start to notice the dirty hacks the game pulls to achieve that.

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

V-

The character animation and movement really brings the jank.

J-

It kind of reminds me of a late PS1 Game
The sounds are there. They try to do an approaching/listening mechanic, but that’s just not a thing that happens

P-

The game obscures everything you’re not looking at.
- Which in a technical sense explains how a relatively open area in Unity isn’t tanking the FerPS.
But it also makes everything stupidly dark.
I guess that’s also to hide the fact that the monsters have 2 or 3 different animations a pop, including the walk cycle.
I get it! It’s the old “The monster remains all the scarier the less you see of it” mantra.
How did that work for Cloverfield?
The guns sound piss weak, to the point where you opening and closing a door sounds louder than a freakin’ revolver!
I can’t give it 1 chair here on accounts that it technically works, but it has done nothing to earn a higher score.

Total-

Control

V-

It “””works””” technically.

J-

This thing controls like a butt
Pedro is right on target with the brigador comparison
There’s a mode that has the camera follow the cursor, and that’s janky as fuck
The crafting UI needs some work. Maybe a search feature?
Combat in this can eat a bag of dicks

P-

It’s not as bad as Brigador, even though it does that exact same stupid thing of moving forward from the perspective of the camera and not from from your reticle is aiming at.
Where it’s better is the fact that it lets you reorient the camera
And if you hate your right click, you can hold it down for ever and at that point the camera will always spin with the reticle and forward means you walk where you’re aiming.
That said, this is still an annoying ass control scheme.
And it doesn’t end there!
“Would you like to change directions while moving? Aha, fuck you!”
The moment you try, your character pauses the movement for a full second and turns to face the direction you told it to move in.
Then, if you have the gall to try and switch weapons in the middle of combat, your character will once again stop everything he/she is doing and ensure you’ll get your face bitten off by one of the post-apocalyptic monstrosities du jour.

Total-

FUN

V-

Another survival game… joy of fk mothering joys.
“Part human, part evil”
- Quit reading the boring arse-intro right there, Brad.
That inventory menus is… layered.
Combat is rubbish.
This is a walkabout, build a fire, and DIE simulator on a budget.
But wait, there’s more!
It keeps crashing when I get killed to death and I get killed to death often.
It’s a bad sign when a game nopes to the desktop and your first thought is “glad that’s over”

J-

I managed to survive one day
These sorts of survival games don’t really appeal to me
Compounded with the lackluster gameplay, poor controls and just damn dying all the time, this game doesn’t do much to improve my opinion of the genre
The exploration element has a weird death road to canada style segmenting system that doesn’t do much in terms of adding any exploration
At least in this I don’t die for no reason, I die because it’s way too cold

P-

The UI is impressive.
You have four different tabs on the left side and another four on the right side, you can have any combination of tabs open provide it’s one from either side.
Besides that, you can also right click on just about everything everywhere.
But it all looks like someone drew those rounded-corner rectangles in MS paint and then used the bucket with whatever shade of CRT green they found and filled in the blanks.
The amount of work that went into the UI functionality is impressive. I’m going to start using Frozen State’s UI system to compare other games to!
That said, I couldn’t do that with anything else in the game.
Your journal says you need to find some parts to fix the “War Rig” the introductory plot dump shows under.
So you go around doing the usual survival bullshit with a janky camera, a character that moves like he/she has Parkinson’s disease and a stupid fucking annoying combat system.
Oh yeah! The combat in this game sucks big fat titties!
The moment you run out of bullets, you might as well throw yourself at the nearest hostile thing you find.
Instead of taking a quick but effective swing of an axe, your character feels like they’ve been a bit under-appreciated and has to do a little twirly ballet move before the swing proper.
And the only thing that does is guarantee you’re gonna get munched on after/during each swing animation.
This is bad design!
Oh and the guns which fire the bullets I mentioned earlier? They sound and feel like you’re blowing spitballs out of a hollowed out ballpoint pen.
And, for a game which is very obviously trying desperately hard to build up an atmosphere, it fails miserably!
30 mins of dealing with my character being too cold or too hungry or too thirsty, is about all I could muster in one go.
So no, it’s not fun.
It’s desperately trying to introduce the survival elements du jour to a formula which was “popular” in 2006-7.
- STALKER’s, Shadowgrounds’ and Fallout’s inspirations are very much on display.
Unfortunately it fails in just about every aspect that made those games fun.

Total-

Final –

You know what the great things about not having kids are? You get to not worry about their every need at all hours of the day and you save a ton money not doing so. So why, in the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, would you spend money to babysit a virtual post-apocalyptic baby?

Hate Mail:

Fatal
http://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?RRI6J9s
http://www.fataltheory.com/